Boot Camp Hampton Roads

Boot Camp Hampton Roads

June 15, 1998|By D. IAN HOPPER Daily Press

MOVIE RENTAL HELP. I don't know about you, but whenever I go to the video store I end up wandering the aisles looking for the movie I was thinking about renting, but forgot as soon as I left my car. One kind local user might have found us all a way out of that problem by creating the Video Renters Guide at members.xoom.com/movies_etc .

The guide is broken down into different genres and has short descriptions of each film, as well as stars and ratings. The categories include thrillers, comedy, action, drama, family films, horror, great date movies, just the guys, just the gals, sci-fi, and lemons to avoid. Films honored in the last category such horrid contemporary films as ``Event Horizon'' and ``Men at Work.'' You're bound not to agree with all the decisions there, but just bringing the titles to mind is a nice service.

The site also has a little movie sound clip game where users try to guess the movie after hearing a clip from it. Most are pretty simple, but there are some more difficult ones. At the very least, it's good to get a laugh from some favorite movies.

The guide loads quickly, and the text is easy to read on neutral backgrounds. My one suggestion would be to link the movie titles to their respective pages on the Internet Movie Database ( us.imdb.com ). Overall, though, this is a very good effort considering the amount of work required to post such a content- and text-heavy site.

CHECK YOUR OWN HOAXES. Whenever a reader sends me a question about a virus hoax, or I get one myself, I try to write something about it here. But I can't possibly alert you to them all. So check out the Computer Virus Myths site at www.kumite.com/myths/ . This is a frequently updated site with a plethora of information about virus hoaxes. I immediately recognized some recent hoaxes and chain letters that I've mentioned here, such as the Bill Gates e-mail, and some classics like the "Good Times" virus and its variants. There are also some general, non-viral misconceptions sent in chain letters like the "upcoming FCC modem tax." Make sure you check the "Hoaxes from A to Z" link. It's huge, but very informative - not to mention entertaining. This is a good place to bookmark so that when you get chain letter hoaxes from some of your more clueless friends, you can send the link to the site back to them.

TIP. Have you ever clicked the Close button when you meant to click the Restore or Maximize button? (This button toggles between the Restore) You can bypass this mistake and easily perform the restore and maximize operations simply by double-clicking the window's title bar.

Hopper is an internet producer for the Daily Press. He has been active on the Net since 1990. Contact him at dhopper@dailypress.com